Title: Restore (1/7) . . . AKA Rift 3
Author: RocketMan >lebontrager@iname.com<
Disclaimer: Mulder and Scully belong to CC, 1013, and Fox. No fringe is
intended.

This set is for Melissa.

~~~~
Restore
~~~~

"Renew my love,
rebuild my faith,
oh, restore my soul."
--"Renew My Spirit, Lord" Church Hymn

~~~~

Dana Scully sat in front of the floor length mirror, half dressed,
stilled from the rest of the morning by the reflection of herself.

She saw her button shirt halfway on her shoulders, white bra straps
peaking from the cloth, and the smooth expanse of her stomach before it
disappeared into black cotton Hanes.

She took a deep breath and watched her form in the flat plane of the
mirror, the way her chest rose and her ribs showed faintly and her lips
parted.

This was her.

This was Dana Scully, the very body and life that she seemed to lose
sight of every time tragedy struck.

She had a faint tan line running at the very tops of her thighs, from
where she had gotten a bad sunburn while scuba diving off the reefs near
San Pedro. She'd been eighteen and fully sunblocked, with short swimming
trunks on and her bathing suit. Even now, she remembered the sting of
that burn, the way it had itched like ants crawling along her skin until
she scratched, then it burned like hellfire and acid.

She had a small freckle on her side, seen only if she lifted her arm,
and it seemed very dark next to the white of her skin. She remembered
the scare everyone had when she was twelve and it suddenly appeared. Her
doctor had thought it might be cancerous. It hadn't been, but surely it
had been an ominous warning.

Slumping further on the bed, she tried to recall how Mulder touched her,
and where, and why. He had kissed her forehead often, a good place to
reach from his height, and she almost could feel the exact place, as if
his lips were engraved there.

She could even sense his wide hands, spread broad along her back as she
threw up, pregnant with Grace, and the coolness and relief they brought
with just a touch.

At her neck, at the grooves of her skull, along her hairline.

He'd claimed every part of her with hands and fingers and lips and
length.

So, now, who *was* the woman in the mirror?

Maybe a combination of childhood illness and scars and sunburns, and
maybe a kind of temple, where all of Mulder was engraved in some ancient
script, to be dicphered at her death.

Letting her thumb trace her kneecap, she remembered how his hands had
traced her skin, how his lips had burned into her, how things had never
seemed wrong or right in his arms -- just there.

There.

Things grew and breathed and lived and became, and no matter how much
she hurt, how much she laughed, she could find peace with him.

She could find herself.

His storm and she the eye, the center, the place that belied the awesome
power to come.

She was all those things with him.

And none of those things without.

Looking back into the mirror, the woman before her moved slightly,
pushed on the shirt, buttoned it up with slow, steady hands. Her mouth
quirked and her head never raised and her thighs trembled on the bed.

Scully glanced away and wondered what had happened to that woman.

What had happened to them all.
~~~~

Muler was there alone, his face twisted as he attempted to find
something to talk over, something that would purge him of the sense of
melancholy settling into him like snow in a ditch.

Karen Kosoff twirled her pen in two fingers then glanced to the mantle
clock set on her desk.

"Look, Mulder. Something's obviously bothering you, and you can't talk
about it to me. So why don't you go to your wife, and talk to her?"

She was frustrated, feeling uptight. Mulder simply wasn't getting
anywhere at all, and he refused to let her in very far.

Refused to let anyone in very far. Except for maybe Scully.

Mulder looked to her, the flash of disappointment in his eyes enough to
make Karen wince.

"I can't. It's about her."

"Seems to me that *everything* is about her."

He sighed and pushed his back into the chair, rolling his neck.

"I suppose. But what will happen if it's not in a controlled setting?"

"If what's not controlled?"

"Our talk."

Karen gaped at him. "Do you mean to tell me that you *never* talk to her
outside this counseling session?"

He frowned, then looked at her slyly.

"Is that a bad thing?"

She sighed and buried her head in her hands.

"Yes. Yes, that is a very bad thing. The whole point of this is to get
you to talk. Didn't you tell me that part of the surface problem was
that you never talk?"

Mulder shifted in his chair. "Uh. Yeah."

"So when you go home. . .what do you do?"

"Look after Grace."

"And she stays at her mother's?"

"Uh, well. Yes. But I've been staying there too."

"You're in the same house and you don't even talk to her!?" she gaped,
feeling as if everything she tried to work through with those two was
falling apart.

"It's not really our nature. We do a lot of fighting in here. When we
get home, we just want to stop."

He sounded defensive.

"And so, I suppose you do this after work too. After all those cases
that are positively gruesome, that take so much emotional energy and
physical energy out of both of you. . . .after all that, you don't say a
word?"

"Not usually. We never needed to before."

"You never went home together before."

He grimaced and sighed, giving her a conceding look.

"Go home. Talk. Explain to her what you think is going on. Maybe she'll
say something back, maybe she won't feel like she needs to. But you need
to talk. Mulder. . . .what a pair."

He took that as a sign to leave, and stood, gathering his coat and
gloves.

She stopped him just as he turned the knob.

"Mulder, remember what I told you before?"

"When was that?"

"When I said you needed to ask for her help?"

"Mm, something about how she needed to know I was doing something to
make it better. . ."

Karen knew she was going to say something mean, but she was feeling
rather nasty and difficult. He deserved it though.

"Right. Now, let's see. If you go home and never say anything, never get
past any of the points we raise here, then how is she to ever know
you're doing something to make it better? You haven't changed. Not one
bit."

He sighed, watched Karen's face reflected in the window, her brow
knitted tightly together.

She wasn't being fair.

He had changed. Volumes. More than anyone had a right to and still be
the same person.

"I've changed. I am still changing. And every day it makes me see that
the  more I change, the less I like myself. Changing who I am to please
her would be wrong. And she knows that."

He twisted the knob, pulled open the door, and walked from the room,
feeling sick and trampled.

He really *had* needed to change, to stop this perverted hunger from
swallowing him up. But. . .to change *who* he was and not merely *what*
he was. . . .

If keeping his marriage together meant becoming someone entirely
different, then how could it ever work? Scully had married him, for
himself, for who he was, and it had taken long enough for him to realize
that she meant it.

That she wanted him. As him.

Changing that would be wrong.
~~~~
~~~~

"Tina says I wish that I had never seen your smile
your name is written on my soul in alphabetic file. . .
Any time I talk to you there's no one listening
every time I reach for you there's no one there
and everywhere I look for you, you're no where to be found."
--"How Do You Tell Someone?" Couwboy Mouth

~~~~

She couldn't help it this time.

Couldn't have changed the outcome even if she had tried.

And she hadn't tried. Hadn't even let him try either.

All they were doing was fighting with words instead of hurt. All they
could see was hurt instead of healing.

She closed the door to her room, wishing to have the peacefulness of her
own apartment again. At least there she could hide when things got to be
too much.

He had come in, overly concerned because of the counseling, sensitive,
touchy, every word and gesture something that had to be thought through,
something to analyze to death.

She just wanted that old feeling back, that wonderful sense of never
knowing just what he might say, or where he might lead her next.

Not so much that, as she really wanted to relax.

Relax.

The fight could have been avoided. She could have ducked out earlier,
let him have his concern and his walking on eggshells.

But that wasn't her. And she was tired of being someone else.

Laying down heavily on the bed, she curled her hands around the thick
red polar fleece blanket, rubbed it across her cheek. The room seemed to
be her only haven, but its confines something she dreaded too.

She pulled her knees up, biting her bottom lip, praying that he didn't
try to come after her today, that he didn't pursue this anymore.

In the old days, if she was hurting because of him, they'd separate,
cool off, find new ways of doing the same old things. Never would Mulder
have come after her, like a beggar for love, and never would she have
cried.

She wasn't a crier. Ever.

Things had a way of changing.

Pulling the blanket around her tight, she closed her eyes.

He popped into her head immediately, but at a different time, a younger
time. There was her apartment, where she felt safe, even with everything
that had happened there.

He was walking in the door; she felt nervouse, anxious.

He had said they should get married, right out of the blue like that,
and now she wasn't sure if he was kidding or not, serious or laughing.

In his arms there had been a small bag, a cream color plastic with green
writing. She was watching him come closer and all the while his words
were repeating in her head.

<We should get married.>

Nothing more than that and she wondered. Of course she wondered.

He got down on his knees in front of her couch, placed the package in
her hands, his face bordering on frightened.

She had opened it, right there, pulled out a book.

A play, actually. "The Night Thoreau Spent In Jail."

She couldn't remember the author, but she'd been puzzled, expecting some
elaborate thing from him, some kind of official proposal, and this book
appeared.

He had asked her to read it, right then. It was short, and maybe it
would take an hour.

She was confused, hesitant, but his face was pleading, his eyes afraid.
He was thinking she'd refuse and this was the only way he could say what
he meant.

So, nodding, a little curious, she had let him on the couch with her,
let him hold her as she read it, slowly, cover to cover.

The play was somewhat theatre of the absurd, but not hard to follow, and
it jumped around playing out Henry David Thoreau's life. It was a kind
of flashback with David sitting in his jail cell and thinking about what
had gotten him there.

David reminded her of Mulder, talking forever about truth and honor and
true living. He was put in jail for refusing to pay back taxes, claiming
that he didn't support the war the government was paying for, so he
wasn't going to pay to support the government.

Mulder had not read over her shoulder, and she was allowed to enjoy the
play and its minor and major treasures all by herself. There were sudden
insights and wonderful truths in that little work, and she laughed and
wanted to cry, but didn't.

In one scene, David is explaining transcendentalism to a girl he's
fallen in love with, and the way he had spoke of it in the play seemed
to be so beautiful to Scully, so right and good.

She didn't remember the words or the way he put it, but it left her with
the sense that all human souls could become anything, could rise up and
be one with ta greater purpose, could transcend the barriers of the
physical body and be so in tune with another human being that it was
almost unreal.

When she had finished, he had put the book aside and taken her hands
with his larger, thinner fingers and held her for awhile, gathering
courage.

Then he spoke.

"David talks about love in that book, about the kind of love I feel for
you, much better than I could say it, Scully. Trascending all kinds of
things, all kinds of fears and failings and faults. I feel that with
you. I can fly, I can leave all this behind and never look back because
I know that with you, there are so many greater and greater things to
discover."

After he had said that, his chest vibrating against her back, she was
silent, breathing slowly.

When he turned her around, she had tears drifting slowly from her
cheeks, and it was the first time she had ever *wanted* to cry in front
of him, the first time she felt he could be allowed to see her
vulnerable.

And then they had gotten married, right in the middle of the night like
that, quiet and sure.

Scully sighed and shifted in the bed, brought the blanket closer to her
and thought about that night.

Quiet and sure.

She had read that play only once, choosing to let its memories just soak
into her like healing bath salts, and even though it was the deepest
probe into Mulder's mind she had ever found, she never picked it up
again.

They were quiet and sure.

Standing suddenly, she needed that book.

She had to have it, to pore over it and find out why it hadn't worked,
why they weren't quiet or sure anymore.

She'd read about David and end up figuring out Mulder. 

If she read that scene again, where David describes Mulder's kind of
love, then maybe she could find it again, maybe she could grasp that
fleeting image of flying.

Quiet and sure, transcending all barriers.

She ran to the door, pulled it open and heedlessly ran down the stairs.

Grabbing shoes and stuffing them on as she ran, Scully paid no attention
to her mother staring wildly at her, or Grace gripping a crayon tightly
in her small hand.

She didn't even see Mulder coming for her until he was there, not
blocking her but close.

Blinking away tears of near desperation, she pushed him away.

"Scully. . ."

"Going to the house. . .just a minute, please."

He backed off, more stunned than accepting.

She never really said please for anything, it wasn't their way.

Scully stumbled from the door, shivering the icey blast of wind,
forgetting that her coat was in the closet.

But she had to get that play, find that scene, figure out what went
wrong. David hadn't married his love in the play, and Mulder had.

She'd figure it out, figure it out.

The car was warmer by the time she got to the interstate.
~~~~

Mulder looked to Mrs. Scully, then back at Grace.

She was running up to him, clutching fearfully.

"I'm going to get your momma, Grace. Stay here."

"Why? Why do I have to always get left behind?"

Mulder felt it like ice through his soul and he bent down, taking her by
the shoulders.

"Not left behind, Gracie. Never baby. I just need to talk to Mommy for a
little bit. So we can get it all out once and for all."

He stood straight again, and shrugged on his coat, kissing her hands as
he did.

She backed away, then buried her head in Mrs. Scully's thigh, closing
her eyes to the sight.

Mulder left, pulling quickly out the driveway and slipping along the
largely iced over street.

The house. The house.

She had to find something at the house.
~~~~
~~~~

"see where he moves
he leaves a wake of tears
see in the path of his going
the banners of regret. . ."
--"my lost father" Lucille Clifton

~~~~

He'd stubbed his toe hard on the doorframe as he left, but he hadn't
felt it until he got to the interstate, pushing in the gas pedal to nose
the car up to eighty.

It hurt.

That was a strange feeling, the throbbing of his toe against the
vibrations of the engine, as the blood rushed throughout his body,
looking for something to repair, just as the gasoline raced through the
car, looking for a place to start.

He wriggled his toes and then frowned, feeling a headache to go along
with his pained toe.

Such mundane things, this headache, this toe.

He couldn't understand why such simple things seemed so important right
now. Hie toe throbbing wasn't nearly as life threatening as Scully
running from the house, coatless and senseless.

The road gave way to a sudden snow and he watched it spin little devils
across the road, not sure what the flurries would be called. Dirt
devils? Snow devils? Seemed strange, worrying over what to call the snow
blowing along the ground when she was somewhere miles ahead, driving.

He turned on the radio, as if he needed the sound to landmark time, to
tell him that yes, he was driving after Scully in real life, and yes,
this hell had really happened to them.

Everything in the past few months seemed like a dream, a nightmare that
just never stopped, kept getting worse and worse.

Worse and worse.

But with Grace's words, her pitiful wish not to be left behind anymore,
the glaring truth and reality of it had hit him full on.

Along with the doorway, but that was just a toe.

And a headache.

This was the rest of not only his life, but Scully's and Grace's as
well.

And if a punch in the gut like Grace's words could get him to wake up,
then he'd gladly suffer through a throbbing toe and a mild skull
pounding.

Listening to the radio reminded him of Grace, of his little girl's first
car ride, her coos along to the music as if she were really singing.

And Scully laughing from the backseat as she watched their daughter.
Swearing that she was 'dancing, Mulder, dancing.'

<She's dancing, Mulder. Look.>

He'd been driving, all alone in the front seat, glancing back when he
could, having excuses to check his rear view mirrors.

There was Grace, wriggling in her tiny seat, just as she wriggled when
she was fed, her nose wrinkled and mouth open, laughing almost.

Not quite. As a psychologist, he knew babies didn't develop the sense of
laughter until later, but as a father, she was laughing and dancing.

<Dancing, Mulder, dancing.>

Coasting home from the hospital, his girls in the back, laughing, both
of them, he had felt oblivious, unfettered, the most free and crazy and
loving since he had told Scully they ought to get married and she had
said yes.

Later, with Gracie being walked to sleep on his shoulder, Scully
watching from the rocking chair, he'd almost fallen to his knees,
crying.

He'd felt awful, sick, like he would throw up right there. Scully had to
take her and hush her back to sleep while Mulder asked for forgiveness,
over and over, begging.

Because on the way home, he hadn't even been paying attention, not at
all. He'd had his own family, the most precious things in the world with
him in that car and he hadn't even been paying attention, too caught up
in the laughing and dancing to even notice stop signs and street lights.

He didn't remember a single thing from that car ride except laughing and
dancing.

And it made him sick.

Scully had laughed at him, put Grace down and let her cry for a moment
before she fell asleep. She had laughed that rich sound of the car and
of other rare ocassions that made him feel better anyway.

She trusted him, she said. And they were fine. It was okay to feel
nervous about Grace's safety, with all the bad things that had happened.

She had said all that and kissed him and they had made love, the baby
moniter propped next to the bed just in case.

And then Scully got up a half hour later to feed, Mulder the next hour,
and on and on until he wondered if babies ever stopped crying or
feeding.

Even though he had felt awful for that one moment, Scully had never made
him feel awful about the way he took care of Grace, never made him feel
inexperienced or unqualified or clumsy.

He knew there were times he had been, and there still were. But she
accepted his mistakes, just as Grace did.

But this mistake could not be accepted, and it could not be erased.

They were going to have to quit trying to forget, and simply try to
live.

At least for Grace's sake.
~~~~

With the rough grain of the front door under her hand, she felt calmer.

Sighing in a breath of pine and oak and dust, she pushed her way inside,
biting her lip to wait for the feeling that always hit her.

It came in a rush.

Home.

This was her home, her life, her entire sanity, right here.

She shut the door and ran shaking fingers through her hair, brushing out
the snowflakes and making her way to the stairs.

Everything was clean, almost as she had left it, but usually, nothing
was ever as she had left it.

Not with both Mulder and a child in the house.

She started up the stairs, running her hands along the banister, and
paused midway, staring.

She'd automatically been picking up, grabbing the sweater left on the
bottom step, snatching a Barbie from the railing, and collecting a pile
of People magazines from the floor.

It was habit. Come home from work and tidy up a bit and straighten
things and she felt better. Felt more in control after the day's
caseload.

It was part of how Dana Scully worked things out. A part of how she
accepted the things that troubled her and resolved whatever problems she
might have been struggling with.

She didn't always need to sit down and spill her guts on every single
subject.

Laughing, she bounded up the rest of the stairs, feeling more alive
after her discovery. Feeling as if maybe their communication problem
wasn't such a huge scary thing. More of a different sort.

Placing things were they belonged, she worked her way to Mulder's
library/study, where he worked on sifting through rejected X-Files or
old cases they'd not solved before, trying to find something paranormal
to hold their attention.

She ran a finger along the bookshelf, watching the dust pile up beneath
her skin, but blowing it off and letting it fall to the floor.

Stooping to the bottom shelf, she peered there, looking for the play,
feeling an urgency rise in her that she hadn't felt since entering.

A noise made her turn and she saw Mulder there, standing relaxed in the
doorway, his eyebrows raised.

"Whatchya doin'?" he asked, like a little kid trying to figure her out.

She smiled. "Looking for something."

"Important?"

"Very."

He remained silent as she scanned the shelf, then the next one up, all
the way to the top.

When she turned her face to him, he saw an uncanny look of fear steal
across her eyes.

She bit her lip and he moved with her to the bedroom, watching her
perform the same inspection on the bookcases in there.

She straightened almost immediately, and he noticed she was close to
tears.

"I can't find it." 

He cocked his head and his eyes asked her what she was looking for.

"It's important, Mulder. That play you made me read. I need it."

He frowned; he had made her read a lot of things, from alien abduction
accounts to "Crime and Punishment."

"What?"

She stared at him for a moment. "Thoreau. Thoreau. Where's that play?"

His lips turned into a grin. "Oh. His night in jail. I'm not sure. I
thought you had it. I read it about three years ago."

She felt herself getting sick; she reached out a hand to steady herself
on the bookcase.

He grabbed her instead and sat her on the bed. 

"You want to read that again?"

She opened her mouth to say yes, to explain it all, but she couldn't.

Jsut couldn't.

"No. I thought I did, but I think that would dull the memory."

His eyes got shy and he turned his head; she wasn't sure if he was
blushing or not.

"Did you . . . know what I meant?" he whispered and turned to her again.

She nodded. "Once. Maybe still."

"Still. I mean it still. It'll always be like that, Scully."

His eyes were intense, that same rich dark that he'd had when he'd given
her the play.

Reaching out, he grabbed hold of her ring, twisting it slightly until it
came off. He held it between his fingers and then looked at her through
its circle.

"I want you to be my wife, Scully. Transcending all this, all our
problems."

She watched him put the ring on her left finger, the wedding ring
finger, the one that told everyone everywhere that she was his.

Looking at it there for a moment, feeling the strange weight of it on
her finger, and the odd absence of it from her right hand, she had an
easiness descend on her, a calm placed right into her soul.

She took his wedding band and did the same, her breath coming fast as
she slipped the gold around his knuckle.

When she was finished, he caught her hands and kissed them slowly.

"Quiet and sure," she whispered and leaned in to the opening of his
arms.

He closed his eyes and felt his soul return.

They were closer to home.

Closer to right.
~~~~
~~~~

". . .i like to think
you are the oddness in us,
you are the arrow
that pierced our plain skin. . ."
--"daughters" Lucille Clifton

~~~~

Grace raced out of the bathroom, her hair still damp from being washed
and her face alight, pajamas already twisted on her small body.

"Daddy! Play that song."

Mulder obediently placed the record on the turntable, carefully
positioning the needle, then allowed it to play.

Scully watched from the floor as Grace froze, waiting for the music and
the words.

As soon as the opening strains of "American Pie" crackled through, she
closed her eyes and dropped to already bruised knees, mouthing words she
knew by heart.

Mulder watched to make sure it wouldn't skip, then moved to the floor
next to Scully, leaning back into the couch.

The first chords started slow and soulful and Grace looked radiant as
she stood again, timing her movements with the opening.

Mulder wanted to laugh, but he didn't dare, since Grace had been working
on the routine since eight o'clock that morning, going so far as to
bring the record with her to Mrs. Scully's so she could practice.

She'd made up the entire thing herself and Mulder had to admit that she
was good for a four year old.

A four year old with his awful rhythm genes.

He leaned in close to Scully, lips tickling her ear.

"Melissa must have had some kind of dancing ability because this doesn't
come from me."

She reared back, laughing at him, trying to hold it in as Grace
continued on, oblivious.

"Don't make me laugh," she hissed and faced front, pretending she didn't
see him.

"Hey, you think she could get your sister's psychic powers too?"

She elbowed him roughly in the ribs, causing his breath to whoosh out of
him like a jet engine. He rubbed his side and made pained noises but all
she did was watch Grace and secretly enjoy his attention.

When the song came to a halt, Grace was doing the splits, kind of, and
grinning like a Olympic gold winner, her face so bright and sunny that
it made his heart clench.

She hadn't laughed and been so excited in a long time.

Grace ran to Scully and dropped in her lap, threading her arms around
Scully's neck and receiving kisses.

"Great job, baby. You made that up all by yourself?"

"Uh-huh. All by myself. Not even Gramma helped me."

"I didn't think she had. You're a smart little thing."

"I'm not little. I'm big."

He pulled her from Scully's lap and tickled her, growling.

"I think you're pretty little. I'm the big guy. Your momma's small, and
you're little."

"Not-unh!" she shouted, giggling between her indignation.

Scully's eyebrow was raised and he grinned goofily at her.

She shook her head and watched them wrestle for a few moments, laughing
as Mulder gave up and Grace planted her feet on top of him, shouting.

"I chewed Goliath!"

"Slew, baby. You slew Goliath," she said through laughter.

But that made Scully laugh harder and she tried to push away her tears,
but before she could find reality again, Mulder was stalking her, Grace
on his shoulders.

"What do you find so funny?" he said, crawling towards her on the floor.

Grace was growling and clinging on to Mulder's chin, trying hard not to
laugh too.

Scully stood, scrambling to get away from him.

"If you tickle me, Mulder. . .I swear. . ."

Mulder grinned evilly and she backed up, considering her options.

As he closed in, she darted out to the side, grunting when he capture
her by the waist and pulled her to his chest.

"I'm not going to tickle ya," he whispered. "I'm going to eat you."

Grace leaned down and giggled at her height, then grabbed for Scully,
blood rushing to her head.

Scully squirmed and glanced up, seeing Grace right above her.

"Want to help me get away from Daddy?" she asked, grinning like it was
the best secret in the world.

Grace thought for a moment, then kissed her father's cheek.

"Nope. Daddy has to eat you first."

"Eew," Scully said and wrinkled her nose. 

That made Grace laugh and then Mulder laugh and soon they were all in a
pile on the kitchen floor, laughing.

<Laughing and dancing.>

Wiping her eyes, Scully stood, gathering Grace up in her arms.

"Come on baby, time for bed."

"Agh!"

"No screaming right next to Mommy's ear, hon."

"Oops."

Mulder snorted and Scully shot him a Look, and they all headed for the
stairs to put Grace to bed.

He bounced on her bed as Scully tucked Grace in, and then made faces at
her while Scully kissed her good night.

Then he wrapped a blanket around her body, tight tight, just as she
liked, and clicked off the bedside light.

She struggled to get her arms out and then hugged him fiercely.

"I love you Daddy."

"Love you more, Gracie."

Scully came up with her teddy bear, after crawling halfway under the
bed, and her little girl giggled, reaching out a hand to smooth her hair
back in place.

"Thanks, babe."

Scully placed the bear right in her arms, then bent down and kissed her
again, brushing her lips against her damp hair.

"Night night, Grace."

"Love you, Mommy."

"Mm. I love you too, hon."

She rose and followed Mulder from the bedroom, watching his back as he
turned off the hall lights, then they went downstairs to turn off the
stereo.

As he turned back around, she caught him in a hug.

He returned it sevenfold, inhaling the scent of laughter and daughter
and mother all combined into one.

"Gracie has a way of making everything all right, even if it isn't,"
Scully whispered into his chest, letting him practically crush her.

"Yes, she does. She's our miracle. . .and she's hyper. Which helps some
I think."

Scully chuckled and pulled back, letting him see the contentment in her
eyes.

"I'm so sorry, Scully. For putting all this in danger."

She closed her eyes, pushing herself past the pain that dragged up.

"It's getting better, Mulder. It's all getting better."

He was still holding her, running his fingers through her hair.

"But do you forgive me, Scully?"

She looked into his eyes, then bit her lip, an action she had been doing
a lot lately.

He let his finger trail along her teeth, unhook her lip from her bite,
smiling. She gave him a wry glance and sighed.

"I do forgive you. But if this hadn't. . .hadn't worked out somehow, I'd
never forgive you for hurting Grace. It's not so much me. . .but that
little girl up there."

He nodded and smoothed his thumb along the part of her lip she'd been
biting.

"What about the little girl in here?" he whispered, touching her chest,
right above her heart.

"She hides in the corner and only comes out to play with Gracie."

Mulder shifted his body to cradle her hips, making her lips swell as he
fingered them.

"Maybe she'll forgive me too?"

"I suppose she will."

Her face was flushed, her body hot and twitching in his grasp; she was
sure he could feel his effect on her.

He was nervous, trying not to push her into something she didn't want,
something she wasn't ready for. There was still a lot of pain, and many
problems, but they were back in their own home, sleeping in the same
bed.

"You know what I was thinking about?" she asked.

He shook his head, not trusting his voice, concentrating on her lips as
she spoke.

"About when you drove us home from the hospital and some song was on the
radio and she was dancing in her car seat, all wriggling and scrunching
up. And her dancing to "American Pie" made me remember that. It also
made me remember how you broke down crying that night. . ."

He nodded, feeling the question come before she asked.

"Were you asking forgiveness simply for not paying attention as you
drove. . .or for everything else that had happened?"

He leaned forward and caught the edge of her lip with his mouth, letting
his tongue trail.

"Maybe a bit of both, though I wasn't think of anything but the car at
the time," he whispered.

She nodded into kiss lazy kiss, her breath fast and hot into his open
mouth.

"I remembered what we did that night too. . .to let you forgive
yourself."

Mulder was only half understanding her words, but they were important.
Her hands began to show him how he could learn to forgive himself, and
he collided with her mouth, forgetting his carefully laid out plan of
going slow.

She replied with the same ferocity and animal need.

They helped each other forgive.
~~~~

He woke feeling strange, out of place.

When he glanced around, Mulder realized that was because he was on the
living room floor, mostly naked, with Scully draped over him. . .all
naked.

She was light, yes, and small, he'd told Grace that, but after hours of
being on his chest, he felt bruised.

He wrapped strong arms around her, causing her to wake slightly, and
moved to a sitting position.

She sucked in her breath like Gracie did as a baby, the content little
sigh after being fed that made him smile.

"Scully?"

"Hmm. . ."

He stood, balancing her against him, making her wake long enough to
drape the afghan over her shoulders.

"I'm taking us to bed," he murmured.

"M'kay."

He chuckled and picked her up, padding in his socks and dress shirt to
their bedroom, kicking his pants along ahead of him until they got stuck
in an end table and he gave up getting their clothes.

She jumped at the cold sheets and he wrapped the blanket around her,
then ran back for the rest of their clothes, thinking it not a good idea
to have Gracie asking about it in the morning.

Scully was somewhat awake when he came back in, her hair mussed by the
blanket and his arms, and she was trying very hard to stay partly awake.

He grinned and crawled into bed, sliding up next to her to get warm.

She shivered as his cooled off skin met her warm flesh, but moved into
him tightly, opening the blanket to accept him.

"Mmm, I think I needed that."

He laughed. "All right. I suppose I did too."

She was still half asleep, but he kissed her mouth anyway.

"Too tired, Mulder. . ."

He nestled his head on top of hers and wrapped his arms around her.

"Go to sleep, Scully. . ."

But he needn't have spoken; she was already gone.
~~~~
~~~~

"listen,
when i found there was no safety
in my father's house
i knew there was none anywhere.
you are right about this,
how i nurtured my work
not my self, . . ."
--"to my friend, jerina" Lucille Clifton

~~~~

She woke to his groan and was alert immediately, pushing herself up from
the bed with elbows shaking.

Mulder had been pressed into her side, and he turned now, wincing and
rubbing his ear.

She crawled closer, hand coming to rest along his stomach.

"What's wrong?" she asked, glancing to the alarm clock. Only four.

When he turned to look at her she flinched.

His jaw was puffy and blue, with yellow rings around the bruises. In his
eyes, she saw pain and humility.

Touching him carefully, she sighed.

"I'm sorry, Mulder."

"I think I must have aggrevated it while we. . .slept."

She shot him a knowing look. "Or something."

He laid back, hitting the pillow with a smack, sounding peculiarly like
her fist had as it connected with his jaw.

"I haven't felt like this since I was ten."

"Ten? What for?"

"I never let my Dad smack me around after that. I was bigger after ten."

She closed her eyes, feeling sick, feeling no better than his father.

"Let's get you some ice," she said, standing and moving silently through
their bedroom.

"If I stand, it's gonna hurt."

She glanced back to him. "And how do you know that?"

She'd forgotten already.

Snorting, he closed his eyes and shook a finger at her.

"I told you, you're not the only person who's punched me before."

She went silent and still, then crept back into the bed with him,
fingers running softly along his skin.

"I'm sorry, Mulder. I'm so sorry."

He shrugged. "I deserved-"

"No." Her words were vehement, quiet, like daggers through the air.

He looked at her, head cocked, jaw black and blue.

Their eyes met, solid and strong, a connection that hadn't been there
for awhile.

He reached out and stroked her cheek.

"Then *you* deserve better," he said finally.

Shaking her head, she moved again to the door, a look saying she'd be
back to discuss this, to argue again.
~~~~

Ice was cold.

He'd forgotten just how cold ice really could be.

Like scissors through his skin, it went straight to his bones, hardening
them into blocks of steel that battered his already sore muscles.

Mumbling another statement of his dissatisfaction, he watched her walk
through their bedroom, only half put out by the ice.

The rest of his attention was focused solely on her, on memorizing ever
move she made, the way she never looked in the mirror until after
everything was done.

She wasn't vain at all, wasn't coy and saucy or slow and dreamy.

She was Scully, moving about the bathroom and bedroom efficiently,
placing things in spots where she could easily access them again,
leaving her brush on the bed so she wouldn't have to run into the
bathroom for it, or all the way into the bedroom.

He wanted to smile, but that ached, so he grumbled and threw pieces of
Kleenex at her as she walked by, attempting to get her attention.

She ignored him until she was finished, dressed, hair dried, make-up
hinting around her eyes.

Then she sat on the bed and looked at him.

"You know, you keep grunting like that and you're only going to make it
worse, Mulder."

He nodded and reached out for her, catching her with a quick hand.

He let the ice dangle from his fingertips as he gave her a soft kiss.

"Are you sure you don't want to come in?" she said, pushing at his chest
so she could stand up again.

"With a huge knot on my jaw? It's only worth talking to you, never to
anyone else. Why even try?"

"People don't hate you Mulder. You're intense. They don't view that very
well because most people lack a true desire for their job. They envy
you."

"If they do, it's only because I got you. Besides, if I come in there,
everyone's gonna say you decked me."

She smiled. "I did."

He frowned, then winced. "But they'll think it was cause I got. .
.fresh."

"You did get fresh."

"And I got some too, but that's not the point-"

She sat down and picked up his hand. "Are you going to let what everyone
else thinks run your life?"

He gaped at her, then shook his head with a sigh.

"You've guilted me into going. Move outta the way. I gotta shower."

She smiled and followed him into the bathroom, catching his socks as he
pulled them off and tossed them behind him.

He turned and poked her, then grinned despite the glancing pain it
caused.

"Wanna shower with me?"

Her look was disdainful, as if that was an activity reserved for the
peasants. She was the only one who could get away with that look and
never make it seem like she was being snobbish.

"We've got twenty minutes. No."

He sighed and stripped down, pushing the nozzle to the hot side, and
then looked back at her.

"Don't lust after me," he warned, shaking his finger.

She grabbed it and kissed his palm, then shoved him in the shower.

"Get going, Mulder."

"Yes, ma'am," he whispered as she left.
~~~~

There were whispers; he expected that.

But her looks made it okay, and her eyes told him that only they
mattered, not what anyone else thought.

When he got called into Kersh's office and asked if he had committed any
dishonorable acts lately, Mulder balked.

"Excuse me?"

The AD had that look that said he was settling in for a long one, and
then flicked his wrist toward Mulder's swollen jaw.

"Oh, sir, I didn't know you cared."

"Agent Mulder-"

"I tripped. Fell into the coffee table. Sir."

The 'sir' came after a long pause, expressing quite well Mulder's
growing annoyance with the conversation.

"You tripped, Agent Mulder?" Kersh asked, emphasizing the 'agent' as if
to say that no agent of his would simply trip.

"Would you like specifics? I don't think you would. I was with Agent
Scully."

Kersh's eyebrows raised so high, Mulder was sure they'd go into
convuslions without oxygen at that altitude.

"Agent Scully?"

"In the dark."

He grimaced. Technically, everything he'd said was true, except the
tripping, but the way in which he said it made the whole thing sound
like fraternization between agents.

Of course, if Mulder never said it, then they couldn't catch Scully and
him on it, and nothing could be done.

And if he was forced to explain, Kersh would laugh at him for letting
his own partner sucker punch him.

"All right, Agent Mulder. You're dismissed."

Mulder stood and sauntered to the door, wishing he could just get Scully
in here, let *her* show him how it felt to get a fist in the jaw.

Scully met him outside the door, eyebrow raised.

"And?"

"And I made it seem really sexy."

She frowned, giving him that look that warned him not to go much
further.

But he had to.

"In the dark, just us. . .a coffee table."

She gave him a swift jab in the side, discreet enough so that no one
would notice.

He coughed and glared, then smiled sweetly.

"Kersh let me go without questioning."

She shook her head as she led him back to the little supply closet
turned almost office. Her nameplate was knocked over on the desk, files
scattered around it, the sunshine beating mercilessly through the window
behind her.

He looked around at the shelves lined up before them, about six in all,
and squeezed into a narrow space was her desk.

Or, at least, in name it was her desk.

She still had one with him, out in the main office, with the people
surrounding them, and the nice computers, but she'd staked claim here
during some background checks she'd had to do, and never moved out.

Of course, it was half his too, or maybe mostly, since he left junk on
her desk all the time, and hid secret X-Files in her drawers.

She'd told him once that she had two desks to make up for not having one
at all in the basement.

She sighed and rifled through some of the various notes on the blotter,
her eyebrows meeting in a concerned frown.

"Scully. . .this reminds me of the basement."

She didn't even glance up, intent on finding whatever it was.

"Oh really."

"Mm-hmm. Secluded, out of the way. Forgotten."

"One desk," she added, giving a little noise of frustration not directed
at him.

Reaching over, he lifted up some folders and Post-It notes, and grabbed
a sheet of computer paper. Presenting it to her proudly, she stared at
him.

"This it?" he asked.

"How'd you know where it was?"

"I'm spooky."

She looked doubtful. "Hardly. You're more like pitiful."

"I think that's pretty lame, coming from the woman who knocked me flat."

"Are we going to add lying *back* to your list of attributes?"

He closed his mouth, sat down in the chair across from her, wounded and
feeling ill at ease.

He didn't want to go back down that road again. Not more fights, or
tears, or pain and yelling and stupidity.

She looked up when she sensed the change.

Blinking, she watched his eyes churn for a moment.

"Oh, Mulder. I. . .I didn't mean it like that. Just teasing. You haven't
forgotten that, right?"

Her smile was tentative, ready to turn down at the sign of trouble.

"Yes. . .but that hurt."

She made a noise, somewhere in between a choked sob and a sigh of
frustration.

"Okay. Okay," she muttered to herself. "We can do this."

"I. . .I. . ." Mulder stopped, unsure of where to go.

"I'm glad you told me. I am. Really. I don't want to hurt you Mulder.
That's not how I meant it at all."

"I know you didn't, but it makes me feel sick. And then it makes me
doubt this. . .doubt the reality."

She reached down, fingering a rose petal left on her desk seemingly
since time began. Her fingernails accidentally punched through its dry
surface and she let it drop.

"I don't want you to doubt this. I'm not trying to get back at you or
secretly make you hurt as much as I did. . .Mulder, I just want the old
us back. Where we could stand here for hours teasing. . .swapping
theories . . .almost laughing."

He nodded. "Me too, Scully. Me too. But I think it's going to be a
while. I think we still need to heal."

She slumped in the chair, the mood of work spoiled by their downturn.

"This is new to me, Mulder." She spoke suddenly.

"How's that?"

"In my family. . .whenever anything happened, we had a fight, or
something really bad and awful occurred. . .we just went to our rooms,
stewed about it for awhile, then came out happy. The same. Forgiving. I
mean, there are things that Bill did to all of us that were just
spiteful, but we forgave him every time. There wasn't any sitting down
and talking and expressing emotions that were usually held at bay. Dad
expected us to get along and we tried. We did usually. I. . .know my
father even had an affair once, when I was about three. When they made
up, that's how we got Charlie."

Mulder smiled and watched her face as she repeated the story.

"I remember it mainly because my mom was crying and I'd never seen her
cry before. Bill, of course, explained everything. I hit him and told
him that Daddy would never do that to us. He had though. And my mom
forgave him and everything was fine. They didn't have these moments
where everything feels so hopeless, like we're never going to get over
it."

She stopped and bowed her head. "They never broke down and cried or
yelled or grew depressed."

Mulder took her hand. "I think, maybe, that was a little different,
Scully. Our bond is unique, all encompassing. It surpasses everything. .
.and that's why it hurts so very much."

She nodded softly and looked in his eyes, meeting them again,
remembering Thoreau.

"I just want it to stop hurting, for both of us."

"Time. We've got to give it time."

The room was close and stuffy, and he pulled away to shrug out of his
jacket, hanging it over the chair.

"Look at it like this, Scully. We never did fight in front of Grace. And
your parents, when you all were kids, probably didn't either. I'm sure
it was worse than what you saw."

She smiled. "I'll have to ask my mother."

Mulder sighed. "I wouldn't. It'd bring up some painful stuff."

She cocked her head, peered straight into him. "Maybe so. But she'd be
more than willing to talk to me about it."

He gaped at her, then shook his head. "I suppose that's one of the
differences between us. My family was always mesed up. We always tiptoed
around each other, and you know, I don't think we've ever even tried to
get over things. To forgive."

She gave him a sad smile. "It's different for us. You're content with
being in limbo over us because that's how you grew up. I'm frustrated
because I'm used to everything working out quickly."

He nodded, smiling and sitting down on her desk, glancing down at her.

"That explains a lot."

She grinned. "Yes, it does."

"So," he said, and by his face, she knew he had switched topics. "You
wanna come over to my place?"

"What about your wife?" she said, eyebrows raising.

He looked at her appraisingly, his mind scrambling for a way to get out
of her tease gracefully.

"I thought you *were* my wife."

She smiled wider and rose up from her chair to kiss him gently.

"Good answer, G-man. But we'd have to be careful. Your wife sure does
pack a solid right hook."
~~~~

Grace was explaining how the wind lifted airplanes at dinner that night,
her mouth moving nonstop, when the doorbell rang.

Scully rose to answer it, and Mulder continued listening to Grace's
science, impressed that she had soaked in all that knowledge just by
watching one television show.

"And Bill says that-"

Mulder held out a hand. "Who's Bill?"

"Bill Nye the *Science* Guy, Daddy," she said, as if he should already
know that.

He nodded. The television show's host. Okay.

"Keep going, Gracie."

A movement caught his eyes and he looked up, over Grace's head, to see
Scully's face, white as a sheet, her fists clenched.

Trailing in behind her came a slight figure, his leather jacket dusted
with snow.

Mulder rose from the table, heart hammering, thinking crazily that the
guy had a gun to his wife and he was here to kill them all.

But the smallish man's hands held a hat he was fumbling with, and when
Mulder got to see him up close, he looked familiar.

"Fox?"

Mulder took the man's proffered hand, shaking it slowly.

"Mulder," he answered, stressing the name.

"Ah, right. Mulder. I'm Jess, one of your cousins. . ."

Mulder's face dawned in recognition and he smiled, but quickly frowned
as Scully came beside him, hands clutching his arm.

"What's wrong?" he said, sensing the sorrow in the air.

"Your mom's real sick. . .I came from the hospital because she won't let
me call you. She made me promise not to call. . .but she didn't make me
promise not to get you personally."

"My mother?"

"She had another stroke, F-, uh, Mulder. It's not good. She can't walk
or talk or feed herself. She's been sick for awhile before this, and
that's when she made me promise not to call you. Ever."

Mulder sat down hard in his chair, finding Scully's hands come to his
neck, shoulders, with gentle support.

"How bad is it?" Scully asked softly. She already knew, but understood
that it was a question Mulder could not ask.

"They're not hopeful. They've done some tests and found that there's a
good possibility she could stroke out."

Scully leaned against Mulder's chair, moving her lips near his ear to
tell him what that meant.

"She could die, then."

Mulder raised a hand, pushed at the tears in his eyes, and sighed.

Grace was watching him with rounded mouth, fork brought halfway to her
lips and hanging there.

"I need to see her," he said finally. 

Maybe his family had never been the type to forgive.

But he wasn't going to let it end that way.
~~~~
~~~~

"she is asking for more than
most men are able to give,
but she means to have what she
has earned,
sweet sighs, safe houses,
hands she can trust."
--"to my friend, jerina" Lucille Clifton

~~~~

Grace was enchanting Jess in the living room with her "American Pie"
routine, sans music, as Mulder was on hold with the airlines.

Scully cleared the dinner dishes from the table, watching him growl
silently at the wait, not used to being on hold since he usually got
tickets through the FBI.

She leaned against the counter, ignoring the dishes stacked up in the
sink, and nudged him.

When his eyes met hers, she murmured, "Get a seat for Grace."

He frowned. "What?"

"We're all going, Mulder. You and I. . .we need to stick together for
awhile. And Grace doesn't need to be left behind."

He opened his mouth to protest, mainly because he didn't want his family
any where *near* his mother, but at her look, he stilled his objections.

The clerk came on the line then and Mulder got three tickets to fly into
Boston from National, with a connecting flight on to New Bedford. His
mother was had been flown to Nantucket, then New Bedford because of the
flight schedules of the ambulance helicopters there.

Jess was planning on flying back too, but he had his ticket already, so
Mulder hung up, slumping into the counter.

She watched him, knowing he wanted to argue her decision.

"Mulder, do *you* want to be the one to tell her we're leaving her
behind for an indeterminent period of time?"

He sighed. "I just . . . you *know* what my family's like, Scully. I
don't want her or you near that."

"But, Mulder, you're going to need some friendly faces there, and
someone to cry on."

He gave her a lopsided grin. "The last time this happened, I sort of
messed up your shirt, didn't I?"

She smiled. "Na. Your tears came out in the wash."

They both grew silent for a long moment, thinking.

Then he straightened up, mentally throwing off his misery and taking her
hand.

"Let's get Grace to bed, and settle things down, then go to bed
ourselves. We can pack light in the morning."

"What time does the plane leave?"

"Twelve. No sweat."

She nodded and watched him struggle to keep a neutral face as he headed
for the living room to rescue his cousin.

She realized she was relieved his mother couldn't speak, that way,
Mulder couldn't pry her for information and end up hurting even more.

The last time she'd seen Mrs. Mulder, the woman had slapped her son.

Scully sighed and followed her husband out.
~~~~

Grace was jumping, literally, because she was so excited about riding in
an airplane.

Her Barbie dolls were crammed into a small bag which was once a camera
case for some very expensive, professional equipment, that Mulder no
longer used.

He couldn't remember why.

Grace loved the bag, saying it made her grown up looking, and she pulled
out the Walkman her parents had given her as an early Christmas present. 

Mainly it was to keep her from annoying passengers with her incessant
questions and lively chatter.

She was in the aisle now, watching Scully shelve their carryons into the
overhead compartment, and grinning as she sang along, out loud of
course, to a Veggie Tales tape Mrs. Scully had given her.

All in all, Mulder could tell that his daughter's antics were going to
keep him from thinking much about his mother.

Which could be a good *or* bad thing.

Scully shooed Grace back into her seat and then squeezed by Mulder's
long legs to gain the window seat. Grace sat between them, her legs
swinging in the chair, her head moving back and forth like Ray Charles.

"God is bigger than the boogey man. . ." she belted loudly, with
surprising accuracy.

Mulder looked intently to Scully.

"What is she listening to?"

Scully's face closed up, and she placed a hand on Grace's knee to remind
her not to be so loud.

Grace lowered her volume, singing in loud stage whispers that really
didn't accomplish much.

"Scully. . ."

"It's Veggie Tales Sing-a-Long, Mulder."

"And what is Veggie Tales?"

She sighed. "Mom's been taking us to church on Sundays, Mulder. . .and
well, she's let her watch some videos while she was over. . ."

"Scully. It's obviously a religious thing. I'm okay with that. Just tell
me."

"Veggie Tales make videos with all kinds of talking cartoon vegetables
playing out Bible stories. Like David and Goliath, Daniel in the Lion's
Den. Well, Grace loves them. They sing like those Disney cartoons, and
in the middle they interrupt for a kind of intermission. It's . . .never
mind. Anyway, Mom got her a tape of some of those songs. . ."

"All right. That's okay. It's just strage to hear *our* child sing, "God
is bigger than the boogey man."

Scully raised a brow. "I wouldn't think so. She believes in God *and*
the monsters under her bed. Like me *and* you combined."

He gave her a look and stretched out further in the seat.

"See, problem one. Averted and dealt with. On to problem two," he said,
glancing over at her.

She physically relaxed. "I was sort of hesitant about telling you. . ."

"Look, Scully. If she wants to believe in God, what right do I have to
stop that? I mean. . .this is *me* here. Spooky. The guy who believes in
aliens."

She smiled and reached over Grace to squeeze his hand.

Just then, Grace let out a squeal as the plane lurched forward, then
crawled over her mother to watch from the window.

She was singing "I Love My Lips" and Mulder couldn't help looking to
Scully and laughing.
~~~~

Scully opened her eyes when a hand brushed along her arm.

She saw a window, small and oval, the protective plastic scratched and
displaying green earth and mountains.

Her head turned to the left and she saw Mulder smiling softly at her.

"We're about to land, Scully."

She nodded and glanced down to where Grace had fallen asleep in her lap,
one finger still on the glass, as if she had collapsed while watching
the sky.

"How long have I been asleep?" Scully said, whispering.

"Mm. Thirty minutes. Not long."

He moved over to Grace's seat and buckled in again, then took Scully's
hand and held it.

So. . . she was afraid of crashing. . .that was normal.

She shivered a bit and gave him a grateful look, then glanced back to
Grace.

"Should we put her in the seat?"

"She'll be okay."

Grace's long lashes fell to her thin cheeks and her hair curled slightly
from sleep, the ends whispy and tickling Scully's arms. She looked dead
to the world, her mouth open and body so relaxed, she could have been in
her own bed at home.

"She's so beautiful. . ." Mulder whispered.

Scully was smiling, her mouth pulled into a soft gentle caress of light
and snow that made him feel like the best there ever was.

"Yes, she is," Scully replied, bending down to kiss her head.

Grace smelled like baby shampoo and soft skin and sleep. One of her arms
was twined between Scully's and her back was to Mulder, feet dangling
from her mother's lap.

"She's almost too big to hold like this. . ."

Mulder sighed and ran a finger along her hairline. "But she's so small.
Like a bird. Or a fairy."

Her bones looked fragile and her face was thin, hair thick and wild,
with bright fathomless eyes that were now closed.

"But when she's awake, Mulder. . .then she's not so much a fairy but a
terror."

He grinned. "What can I say? She gets it from me."
~~~~

Mulder was amused to find that a second plane ride was even more
exciting that the first, and caused Grace to stay bouncy and hyper
throughout the flight.

She fell asleep after a McDonalds lunch in the back seat of their rented
Ford, her body slumped over the seat like a puppet on strings.

Mulder drove quickly through New Bedford, a town he knew inside and out,
taking short cuts through the streets and making it to their motel in
record time.

He found he still couldn't face his mother, even with the gentle
memories he had now to combat whatever might be in his mother's face.

Even with the sight of Scully and Grace, mother with child, asleep on
the plane and so beautiful. . .even with that image he wasn't prepared
to face his mother.

Scully wouldn't let him abandon it though, and she unpacked the few
things they would need later, managed to get Grace to change out of her
dirty overalls and into Blue's Clues pajamas so that she could sleep
anywhere, whether that had to be in the hospital that night, or on the
way back to the motel.

She bundled Grace up in her coat, put her Blue's Clues slippers on her
feet, and pulled up her hood, zipping everything all the way through
Grace's complaints.

Mulder watched, feeling more and more dread with every action that led
them closer to the hsopital.

In the end, he drove them there the long way.

Scully could tell, but she said nothing.
~~~~
~~~~

"In the name of honesty,
in the name of what is fair
You always answer my questions
but they don't always answer my prayers."
--"We Have No Secrets" Carly Simon

~~~~

As they walked through the halls, the smell of death was cloying, a
combination of Vaseline lotion, the elderly, and sterilization. It felt
heavy,
pressing down on him as he held Grace in his arms, a kind of physical
presence that wrapped all around him.

Scully was oblivious to it, having spent enough time in hospitals as an
intern to have the smell internalized, pushed away, relegated to some
corner of her mind that refused to believe that death could overtake
someone so rapidly.

Grace was hugging his neck hard, a sign that she too felt the pull of
the place, the way it dug right into the soul and resided there,
thriving while you wasted away.

The Information desk was more like a retirement job for the nurses who
were too old to work anymore, bitter and full of useless facts that
could not direct them to the right floor.

Scully grew frustrated and pushed away from the desk, starting towards
the elevators and the sleek, black directory there.

Mulder followed with Grace, both their eyes wide as they took in the
huge
hospital.

The lobby waiting room was expansive, separated by couches and chairs
that displayed sleeping figures and lounging relatives. Phones dotted
the walls and end tables held ancient magazines speaking of the imminent
collapse of the U.S.S.R.

Mulder plowed right into Scully, where she had stopped before the
elevators, one hand calmly held out to stop him, somehow knowing he
wouldn't be paying attention.

"Fifth floor, Mulder."

He nodded and they stepped into the elevator, a few interns nodding to
them while the lone nurse merely glanced anxiously through a few charts.

It was a quick ride and they got off, leaving the others in the car
while Grace waved good-bye. Scully strode right to the nurses station,
asking for directions, leaving Mulder to stand obtrusively in the
hallway, watching as two nurses discussed a case in the corner and a
male doctor made rounds with an aging smile.

The place was quiet, even through the sounds of talking and joking,
phones ringing and intercoms paging, the hospital had a silence to it
that stilled his heart.

Grace peered into one of the rooms, wiggling down from his arms to see
the old man propped up in bed, curled on his side in a sort of last
appeal to God to take him.

Mulder sntached her before she could wander inside, and then hoisted her
up in his arms again, quieting her protests with a patented father look.

She laid her head on his shoulder and merely gazed in the open rooms,
her eyes taking in the man's shrivelled arms, the skimpy gown with its
indecent exposure, the way his eyes stared right into hers and found
nothing.

Grace shivered and looked around for her mother.

Scully was smiling, thanking the black woman at the desk, saying
something that invited the laughter of the women and men around her.

Mulder felt oddly at ease, drifting down into the easiness of her smile
as she headed towards them.

She took Grace's foot, squeezing it tightly, and led them from the desk
to another side hall, with closed doors along every side.

The carpet muffled their footsteps and Scully was glad his mother was on
the fifth floor, instead of ICU. It gave a certain amount of hope.

When they reached the door, the broad handle clicked open easily and
they slipped inside, Mulder in the lead, his hand rubbing Grace's back
as she watched.

A few people were there: his Aunt Beth, eleven years younger than his
mother, and two of her children, grown now with families of their own.

The doctor was nodding to Beth, and his mother was lying in the hospital
bed, looking thin and weak, her hair still shiny silver, but her eyes
dimmed to a thick, dull metal. Her hands were under the thin blanket,
and she looked diminutive in the large bed, with the tubes running in.

The numbers held a steady 75, and he wished he knew what that meant,
whether that was bad or good or doing better.

He reached for Scully, but found she was already back outside, talking
candidly with the doctor, a balding man of about fifty years, his lab
coat worn and clean.

He walked in slowly and found his mother staring at him, her eyes that
blank look of the depressed, so achingly empty that he felt the pain
start in him, slide through his arms and legs and throb.

"Mother?"

She held up her hand, and he quickly grabbed it, feeling a measure of
relief at her tight tight squeeze.

"Fox," she said and he was surprised.

He looked over to his aunt, who had drawn back out of respect, then let
Grace down to the floor.

"Mother, how are you feeling?"

She nodded her head, but it kind of rolled around on her neck in an out
of control manner that made him want to reach out and stop it.

"Mom, I brought my family. . ." he said gently, knowing that she might
be confused since she hadn't seen Grace ever before.

"Fox. . .Dana?"

"Yeah, Scully's outside talking with your doctor. . ."

"Good. He's nice, Fox. But she'll know. . . can tell me what's really
going on."

Mulder smiled. "I brought Grace to see you, Mom. My daughter, Grace."

Her eyes grew confused and she shook her head.

"Grace, Mom. I told you about her."

"I. . .I don't remember. . .you're married, Fox?"

He stilled the panic rising in him and gestured to the door. "Married to
Dana. You remember. You were furious we didn't have a normal wedding."

"Dana. . .she's good. She'll let us know the truth. That doctor of mine
is nice, but I don't think he's telling me everything."

Mulder closed his eyes, smothering the fear in him.

Grace yanked on his jacket and he opened his eyes, picking her up.

"Mom, this is Grace."

He begged with his eyes for her to not ask questions.

<Don't you dare hurt her> he was saying.

"Hello, darling." His mother reached up and snagged Grace's foot,
shaking it like a hand.

Grace smiled and wiggled down into the bed next to her unknown
grandmother.

Sitting down, she touched her arm, whispering in a soft voice.

"You're Daddy's mom?"

Mrs. Mulder's eyes grew confused, but she nodded, glancing to Mulder
with a sort of desperation that made him snatch Grace back into his
arms.

"Grace, this is your Grandmother."

"Oh. Hi Grandmother."

But Mrs. Mulder's eyes had closed and she had drifted off again, letting
her exhaustion claim her from the ever changing world around.

Mulder felt Scully's hand on him, and he turned, looking into her eyes.

With one look, she told him all he needed to know.

He felt the tears slip away, the weight of Grace hold him down.

She wasn't going to make it.
~~~~

end
adios
RM